Welcome. I’m afraid, it’s seems you have missed out over the years. Doctor Who has always been an adventure in liberalism. It’s in the show’s DNA. Let’s face it, 1963 and 2017 are worlds apart in terms of what is or isnt possible for a whole bunch of people. The one thing this programme has done since 1966 is change. It would still be being made, if it hadn’t adapted over the years. This particular change is long overdue. This has nothing to do with any pink liberalist BBC agenda, it reflects the way that British Society and its expectations of itself have changed since 1963.

I’m also confused about your monsters comment. One thing you can say about Moffart, he’s created new monsters. Lots of new monsters. More perhaps than any single writer for Doctor Who.

Just look at the last season. Daleks are compulsory if they ever want to use them about, but they were used sparingly, and weren’t the monsters of the episode. Two Cybermen episodes to tie up at the end. Other than that, Heather/the pilot was pretty scary at the start. We had the Monks. We had a big creature under the Themes, (though the real monster was a Victorian Businessman – is that what you mean by pink liberalist agenda? You must hate Dickens…) we had robots killing people for being sad. We had zombifying space suits – of course, the real monsters were capitalists of the future.

So if this last series had used the same ‘bug eyed monsters’ created 50 years ago, you might not have been so het up by the politics. The politics came with the new monsters.

Politics came with the old monsters too. Daleks: Nazi’s. Cybermen: assimilating and de-indevidualising people.

And even if it did over rely on the same old monsters, why would that bother a ten year old? Are you complaining that it’s changed or that it hasn’t changed?

“What Dr Who was all about”? It certainly wasn’t about gender politics, and it still isn’t. It’s about a little science and a lot of adventure. It’s about storytelling and space and saving the day. It’s about an alien in a blue box. That’s why, to me, the Doctor’s gender is irrelevant.

If the issue is having to “get used to” a female Doctor, well, for me, every new Doctor needed a few episodes to get used to them. Nothing to do with the quality of the acting, just the simple fact that every Doctor is a little (or a lot) different. The Doctor changes faces so much, what does it matter if one’s hair is a little longer? I’ve loved each and every one (yes, even the movie), and I’ve no doubt I’ll love this one too… After I get used to the new personality.

Ok what is about everyone all like “ill never watch the show again” i mean yeah this is a big change but at hart isn’t that what the show is all about. and this whole thing where people are comparing this to the likes of James bond and Sherlock Holmes by say things like “what next James Bond a female or Sherlock a female” because that is not how it works.

it has been established in the show that a time lord can change gender during regeneration so we need to stop all this i’m never watching again and give it a chance just watch one episode in series 11 (when its released) if you don’t like Jodie’s doctor then fair enough but right now we have no idea what she is like yet. for all we no she could become one of the best doctor or could be one of the worst

like i said just give her a chance like we do every time we have a new doctor

Sorry, personal opinion but I think she is attractive and has a good persona that pulls you into her character.

I’d agree.

@tardigrade I thought the outfit was meant to be similar to Twelves, as in the regeneration had just happened because the coat and hoody looked too big on her – like Tennant in Eccleston’s leather jacket.

A fan from the start but time to depart. For me the ending of the last series will be the end … the doctor is met by his original self the circle is complete. The sooner the BBC becomes a subscription service the sooner I can show my displeasure by canceling it.

I think it is nice to see that the BBC actually dared to go with a female actress for the 13th Doctor.
Another male Doctor with a young female companion would just have been more of the same old
and personally I think it is nice with some change.

I am not happy. Didn’t the BBC put out an official statement that Dr Who would only be a male? Only a month or 2 ago?? I too have been watching a very long time-over 30 years. I want a male dr. I think this move to a female dr, whilst for 5 mins gets lots of press for the show, won’t be good for the show long term. I am predicting next season to be the last! The new actor cast is already dividing fandom. You divide viewers. Low ratings cancel shows. We saw this before with a very divisive 6 doctor, who was unlikeable episode 1 of his tenure. I will watch what happens and hope wrong. I did really love Missy and was very surprised to find this. She was great. BUT I think the show needs a younger and male actor. Another Matt Smith or Tennant. Dont want to offend anyone. I just dont think this will be successful long term and is a gimmick at the detriment to the shows survival. I think I’m going to write to the BBC

the original show clearly points out that there are time lords and time ladies… I wouldn’t mind if the doctor had been female from the start but HE wasn’t…. my issue is with the beeb re-writing the shows history

The timelords werent invented until 1969, some 6 years after the show was first created. The first “timelady” didnt appear until 1978. It’s never been explained how or why Timelords regenerate let alone how they reproduce – that’s all an assumption. They’re aliens; anything you can imagine is possible.

Part of me cannot be bothered to engage with the one-off sign-ups who’ve joined to froth about the Doctor regenerating in a female body. But another part of me feels they should be anwered, publicly, despite the present age’s penchant for “edgy” ironic/ post-ironic trolling.

@jim4 whatever the truth of your nostalgic vision of early Who as for “kids and Dads” (presumably whilst Mums were in their “proper” place in the kitchen), that first generation of captivated kids included girls and boys, as long-timer and original era fans like @scaryb here can attest, or our dearly departed @htpbdet who married his wife, both of them in Who costumes, as they were both original child fans who continued to be so as adults.

What did you think was going to happen? Girl-fans would grow up and lose interest, to take up their “proper” places in the kitchen again, like their Mums before them, reproducing in aspic, your idealised youth? As if 50 years of social change outside and inside the world of television did not happen?

Verity Lambert was the first producer on Doctor Who, the youngest and only female head of drama at the BBC at the time. And Waris Hussein was its first director, and he is gay (although, of course, he wasn’t publicly out back then) and British Indian. It was always a forward-thinking show. The first companions were the equally educated teachers, Iain and Barbara, and the Doctor’s grand-daughter Susan – so the first adventures we humans got to see involved a gender balanced TARDIS.

“Misguided liberalism and political correctness” is clearly partly code, in these sorts of posts, for the arrival of out LGBT characters in Doctor Who with the re-boot under Russell T Davies, together with the revelations that Time Lords can and do regenerate in male and female bodies, meaning the Doctor is in fact a gender-fluid pansexual alien.

Newsflash – he was always an alien. Two hearts, incredible longevity, ability to regenerate etc. etc. Anyone expecting aliens to stick to human gender and sexuality “norms” must have been reading a very narrow range of science-fiction all these years.

It’s also no surprise to me there are LGBT people in space, but then, I’ve always known there are LGBT people on earth. Earth’s animal kingdom is full of gay sex btw and always has been:

The Beeb has been slower to catch up to that, tbh. Its Planet Earth style nature shows remain relentlessly heterosexual. Can’t wait for the pearl-clutching when a new generation of nature programmers actually depict a couple of same-sex pair-bonded swans or penguins (assuming these lovely beasties survive the sixth extinction) – heh. I am pouring my celebratory cocktail already. No, future-moaners, it’s not “political correctness”, it’s nature – you just grew up in a world of illusion is all.

I remember a similar bit of gender politics hoo-ha back in the 1970s when the Doctor aquired Romana as a companion, because she was clearly his intellectual equal, and in fact had achieved much better grades than him at the academy, to his great annoyance! She was also able to choose the body she wished to regenerate into, having, apparently, much greater control over the process than the Doctor has ever exhibited. But, he’s an adventurer, so perhaps he just prefers to set his biological controls to random and has an “I’ll take whatever” approach. It fits.

Jodie Whittaker is clearly going to need support, as she takes on a mantle which involves certain “fan” corners of the internet more grouchy and retrograde than perhaps belong to any other show. I can’t wait to meet her Doctor.

@juniperfish i’m over the Moon & filled with joy you bothered to engage with a one-off sign-up, who joined to froth about the Doctor regenerating in a female body, i can’t thank you enough for taking the time to leave a comment.

Whooo, remarkable and that’s some long drawn out reply, which shows your life long devotion to the program. When it comes to Dr. Who and all things whooy, you surely are the font of all knowledge. How about painting the Tardis pink, bet you’d like that

Tho, when all is said and done, its only a kids TV show and there’s a whole big wide world out there, away from children’s TV programs and their associated forums….try the real world, you night like it.

@premonition Actually, they dealt with it in the episode where Smith regenerated into Capaldi and it was very much a plot point. Check out “The Time of the Doctor” if you haven’t seen it already, the fact that the Doctor has been able to regenerate past his allotted 12 is intentional and explained in the plot of this episode. They didn’t just randomly decide to do it, they wrote it into his narrative. 🙂

See how divisive it is on here already. Ratings of a tv show rely on casual viewers not just fans. I predict the show will have huge ratings to see the regeneration and then ratings will dwindle after that. Capaldi’s season didnt rate that well (although truly great) and any dip in numbers is not good. hope I’m wrong but seen it before….

It surprises me a little that so many seem surprised at the casting of a woman as the Doctor. The possibility has been telegraphed fairly clearly and with increasing frequency over the past few years and, speaking for myself, I’m very much looking forward to seeing what Jodie Whittaker will make of the role. Like @jimthefish, I wasn’t looking forward with much optimism to Chibnall taking over the running of the show, because I haven’t been particularly impressed so far by his writing for it or for Torchwood, but this has reignited my enthusiasm.

To my shame, perhaps, I haven’t seen Attack the Block, or any episodes of Broadchurch, and am not aware of having seen Whittaker in anything else – though I may have done so without it registering – but just the glimpse in that introductory video was reassuring, as are the very positive opinions that so many who are familiar her work to date have of her abilities as an actor.

Now it remains to be seen who will be her companion(s). I would have been very happy to see a revived Bill, and the possibility has been left open, given that the Heather entity apparently has the ability to reinstate her in her original human form, but that doesn’t look likely, at least in the immediate future. I was amused, though, by one tongue-in-cheek argument against a female companion which I read earlier today on another site; ‘ … the episodes wouldn’t be very long, because two women would just go in there and fix the problem right away, instead of all that silly running around’.

I will come out and say that I do understand the misgivings of those who don’t like this. I think even those of us who are interested and even excited to see what happens are worried that it’ll be used as an unnecessary platform. I don’t want a female Doctor, I want a Doctor. Someone that captures the spirit of the character, the essence and the ethos. If that’s a man, or a woman, or a giant bug, I don’t care. But the writing has to be up to the job, it has to scrub away any significance between being one gender or another and give us The Doctor. It has to prove that this step is meant to show the lack of importance of external appearances, that it doesn’t matter what you look like because who you are inside will be the measure of a true hero. If they do that, I will be full of praise. If, on the other hand, they actually try too hard to make The Doctor a woman, I think I’ll be annoyed. I don’t care about the occasional flippant joke, or a bit of femininity, Missy proved you can play it up and retain the character, but at the end of the day, they can’t make a gimmick of this. I understand people being concerned by it, though I’m a bit disappointed they’re crystal-balling it as a foregone conclusion.

My cousin also made an interesting point about what kind of reception this would have received had the character always been female and then turned male, in today’s political climate. I know why people get weary of that, and I see their point. I think it always resonated for him too that there was a male icon out there who was a bit more brains than brawn about saving the day. Balancing out representation is important as long as we’re careful we don’t fall into the trap of replacing instead of creating. I don’t necessarily hold strong views like this myself, but I can appreciate the opinion when offered logically and fairly. I think we’re seeing a lot of overly emotive stuff at the moment, people are flinging themselves about in fits of passion speaking of wrack and ruin when this is just one part of a very long narrative that’s been going on for 50 years. It will end one day and even if this move is the nail in the coffin, I’m still glad they were willing to be bold instead of stagnating.

I am delighted with the news. And there were no dissenting voices when it was announced at our party yesterday – plenty of comments along the lines of ‘at last’, and ‘about time’. I wish I could say I understand why it makes people so unhappy but truly I don’t. The doctor is not human. There’s no reason why gender should work in the same way for a Time Lord as it does for a human, no reason why that should not change in the same way that any aspect of physical appearance – as well as aspects of personality – change with regeneration.

There is also no Holy Writ established in 1963 that sets out how it all works. The many writers and showrunners have been making it up as they go along, paying all due respect to the original concept but developing it and building on it – if they had not done so, I doubt we would still be watching and talking about the show today. So they are perfectly entitled to give the Doctor a crack at further regenerations, or to establish that Time Lords can change gender on regeneration, and whilst we can obviously judge them on the quality of the narrative in which they do so, no one can really say that it is fundamentally wrong.

Whilst I personally don’t have a problem with gender swaps for iconic roles such as Bond and Holmes (if only because that inevitably shakes up and makes one look afresh at aspects of the role and context), I do kind of understand why people aren’t keen on it, or see it as arbitrary. The Doctor is different, I would argue.

Some of those upset by the change talk, I’m afraid, arrant, sexist nonsense. [Perhaps my favourite from Twitter was a man saying – and I paraphrase slightly to avoid offence – that the Doctor should never be a figure for sexual fantasy, to which the response from a woman was ‘Mate, I’ve got terrible news for you…’.] Talk of how the Tardis will now be full of bras or whatever is just silly and doesn’t deserve debate.

But where there are longstanding and valued members of this forum/family who are unhappy about it, all I would say to them is, give Jodie a chance, see what she can do with the role, and Who knows, you may end up loving this new incarnation.

I will be watching the regeneration and will see how it goes. Do agree the show should not stagnate and a female dr allows for more storylines and different ones. Although isnt alot of that done already with Missy??

IAM worried this is not a good way to go long term with the general viewing public. If producer gets it wrong….Been there before. Show was cancelled 18 odd years. No show! Not fun.

The first time sign ups are here because we feel strongly enough to join and make comments. Welcome us and embrace new blood. I have been a Dr Who fan for many years and watched every episode plus films, audio and book formats and believe I have the right to a veiw or is this a restrictive club ? I do not like the casting decision but I do not judge those who do. Time will tell if this is a good move but it’s not for me

@themadmonk Like all polite and articulate members, you’re welcome. We have a bit of history of people signing up on a whim, so to speak, to vent quite viciously and scathingly and more than a few haven’t taken kindly to alternative opinions. Forgive the wary amongst us, we are not adverse to diversity as long as it is done, as Craig so often asks, in kindness. Welcome!

It just occurred to me that, since we’re in Valeyard territory, and as far as I know it’s never been established that we’re done with that version of The Doctor, maybe this is just all a backwards misogynistic move to use a woman to play The Doctor’s dastardly persona.

@themadmonk This is in no way an exclusive club and you are very welcome. I just think people are confused as to why you would want to take the time to sign up just to say you are never watching the show again.

Now, of course, it could be because you maybe want to talk about Doctors of the past on our “Faces” topic, or revisit some of the old episodes in our Moffat or Davies retrospectives, or the BG (Before Gap) episodes we’ve discussed in the past.

If you are indeed new blood then you are very welcome. Some have just joined up to make one post and will never be seen again. I hope to see you continue to participate on our little forum in whatever way you can now that you’ve stopped watching any new Doctor Who.

I’m not sure if the warning is enough, there’s a few swear words on this, but essentially this is a brilliant look at all the times the show has done something that’s had a negative backwash. I chuckled quite a bit. (Please remove it if it’s not appropriate though.)

@mudlark I was going to post the link to that then realised there was another page of comments and thought I had better check first to see if someone else had done so. (Especially as I’m not overly confident with posting links) so glad to see that you beat me to it. Yes lovely article. Colin continues to rise in my estimation. Though I do understand why many women would be opposed to having a female doctor. I know as a teenager I would have preferred an attractive man in the role over a female role model. As the assistant was always put there to please male viewers let’s hope they bare that in mind now. Though I am relieved that they have chosen an actor who comes across as intelligent and sensitive for the role and not one who “looks hot”. (Not to say that J.W. isn’t attractive.)

Well Doctor Who has certainly made news today and people who have not watched it for years are talking about it. I think that there will be record ratings this Christmas.

I have been a Who fan since early childhood (early seventies) And having watched/read most of the posts regarding Mz Whittaker’s appointment I thought I would put down some of my thoughts and apologise is any of my points have already been made.

Given that Who started in the 60’s broadcasting was still pretty much a male dominated domain so early Who would not have considered a gender change for the main role, but if the show had started today the idea of changing the Doctor’s gender would almost certainly been considered before now as it would have been considered an almost logical extension of the possibilities of regeneration. So I really don’t agree with all the nay sayers who are saying they will not watch Who any more. What is important whatever the gender is that the actor/ess has the ability carry the role and embodies all that the Doctor stands for.

You are almost certainly correct, and I suspect that for every viewer lost because they cannot get over their fixed views on gender and what constitutes masculinity and femininity, alien or otherwise, there will be others who reconnect or, indeed, connect for the first time.

As for preferring an attractive man in the role, having been born in 1942 I never had the privilege of watching as a child, let alone a teenager, so never really considered the fanciability or otherwise of the Doctor a factor, though I confess to a slight weakness for Capaldi’s Doctor – which would probably count as cradle snatching given our relative ages. One of my slight niggles with Tennant’s Doctor was that he verged too often on Romantic Hero mode for my taste.

Just noticed a slightly embarrassing typo in my post #60885, but then perhaps I could try passing it off as wordplay on Who.

“Doctor Who dies” quite funny (especially with the increased frequency over the least few years), but a bit too close to the bone with casting Bonnie Langford. Much as I might have got a bit wound up once or twice recently, nothing has been as bad as that. Mind you, I admit my bias there was something about her voice I could never stand (talented as she undoubtedly is).

I think many on here are doing well in engaging with the one-post wonders, who will no doubt slink back off to the Daily Heil after they’ve had their little rants. But just a reminder to them that while they’re here, they might like to take note of the site etiquette. Particularly the clause on personal abuse of members. (Yes, I’m looking at you @jim4)

But on a general note, this is not stunt casting. It’s not rewriting Who history. This has been telegraphed as something that could happen for years now. And as @nick says, it’s not liberal ‘pinko’ bias. It’s not ‘political correctness’. It’s not a ‘victory for the social justice warriors. (and I’ve never understood how those are necessarily bad things anyway? How can social justice be bad? And given that ‘political correctness’ is essentially ‘treating others with respect and operating on a default setting of dignity and equality’ I don’t see how that can be a bad thing either. Quite apart from anything else, if you are opposed to such things then why the hell are you watching Who anyway, as it’s a show that quite clearly champions those sentiments above all else.) Nick is right. A liberal, humanist agenda, as first personified by Ian and Barbara and then the Doctor, is in the very show’s DNA.

As to the dynamic of the show changing. Well, good. That’s what has always happened. That’s what the show has thrived upon. That’s what’s enabled it to survive for 50 years. Troughton’s arrival changed the dynamic of the show dramatically. Pertwee’s era was another striking sea change. The show has survived by to some extent holding up a mirror to the era in which it is made. And this is just the latest example of that. And to all those who say they’ll stop watching, well, a) I’m not sure I believe you and b) given that kind bloody minded petulance, I’m not sure you’ll be missed.

To echo @juniperfish, all you have to do is look at Christel Dee’s reaction to the news in the fan show, or any of the other reaction videos posted above, the show has had millions of fans throughout its run who have taken a male Doctor as a role model, mostly because they had no choice, and I don’t see how that’s going to be any different for generations of boys out there. (Because that would suggest that they are somehow deficient or inferior in terms of imagination and empathy, and that surely can’t be the case, can it?)

@nick and @blenkinsopthebrave — I actually think I’m rowing back on my ‘girl next door’ misgivings about JW. Partially because I watched Attack the Block again last night which helps show a different, although not necessarily Doctorish, side to her, but also because CC clearly picked her after working with her for a number of years and because she aced the audition apparently (rather like Matt Smith). I think she’s going to bring something very different to the part.

@serahni Thank you for the link. Lots of chuckles here too. I never cease to wonder how many supposed “fans” have actually watched Dr Who. The claim that Doctor Who was never meant to be political always amuses me. Do they forget Monster of Peladon or The Green Death, not to mention The Sunmakers. And as for the series being P.C. Barbara Wright might have a thing or two to say about that. Dr Who was never backward in showing its ethical heart and has always reflected the more tolerant and “liberal” values of the day. And long may that continue. It is when the show becomes timid and conservative and dumbs down to be pure “entertainment” that Dr Who dies.

Came in this morning specifically to post the “Times Doctor Who Was Ruined Forever” link but @serahni beat me to it! If you haven’t clicked yet (here it is again), do so – it’s a good laugh and a little historical perspective.

As for the conversation about the Doctor’s (apparent) age, yes of course all explanations are after-the-fact justifications for casting choices, but I always liked the Tenth Doctor’s speech to the Fifth Doctor in the mini-sode “Time Crash” (sorry, no good video):

“You know, I loved being you. Back when I first started at the very beginning, I was always trying to be old and grumpy and important, like you do when you’re young. And then I was you, and it was all dashing about and playing cricket and my voice going all squeaky when I shouted. I still do that, the voice thing. I got that from you.”

So I think the Doctor’s (apparent) age says something about his personality and level of maturity at that particular time (which, like any of us, fluctuates). Ten had taken on so much of the weight of the world on his shoulders but the end (Waters of Mars, for example, being one of my favorite episodes), that I think Eleven’s childish whimsy was a reaction in the other direction. Similarly, by the end of Eleven’s time he was ready to grow up (after finally ceasing to run and actually settling down on a single planet for several hundred years), and we got Twelve’s surly grandpa.

Perhaps the same is true of his (her) gender. Once we get a sense of Thirteen’s character, I think we will see another logical progression.

Been watching dr who since I was 4yrs old, my first doctor being the late great Jon Pertwee… defeated many foes but alas could not beat the bbc’s political correct agenda…

Welcome to you! You might be my mum’s generation -she loved Pertwee, the B&W film, the tension and the corridors but she believed that the show like everything has to evolve. And evolution doesn’t mean a drastic change -we’ve had a fantastic female Master and for many hundreds of years, in real life, we’ve had female general practitioners all over the world!

But when people say “this is a political correct decision” I worry.

I’m 15 and my female friends are too -we’re the ones going to be watching now and in the future.

Political Correctness if it means evolution and gradual change towards equality is fantastic then. 😉

But it seems to me that this PC idea is saying ‘we have to follow certain new changes for the sake of it which upsets tradition and the ‘way things should be’.’ I think some traditions are great, I think some traditions can evolve into other traditions when the time is right and it’s been 52 years -it’s long time past for a female in the lead: It’s Doctor Who after all and we don’t know his ‘actual‘ name and probably never will.

If any of the old guard can please explain “political correctness” to me properly I would appreciate it. I do read that phrase often and it confuses me.

I think that there’s nothing in the show to say someone ages into a younger Doctor or an older Doctor 😉 That’s one phrase you’ll only read on this site. I think their brain brawn isn’t affected at all -the Tennant Doctor did do a lot of running, though 😀

@tardigrade@janetteb I agree yes, there is a quick reaction to this news and it hits people emotionally. You can see that in some of the above posts where people are a bit unhappy. But I hope the new Doctor has some great stories, and adventures: that’s what made the show so alluring to me when I was five!

those are excellent points about maturity you make. I see it as a Doctor being 2000 years old but not looking it or being 2300 years old and looking 32 in real life! As you pointed out Eleven was very old and couldn’t pull out the cracker for Christmas. To me it was a way of showing children that people DO get old and become different in that process. I also saw that in Capaldi’s version. Some people may’ve said we need a young, handsome Doctor like Tennant or Smith but I don’t get that at all! And funny that my female friends think two young guys in Sherlock and Watson are young enough so going older in Doctor Who or regenerating female is marking time pretty well.

@mirime@serahni I’ve actually missed 80% of Capaldi for various reasons, which has rather put a crimp in my understanding of the current Doctor mythos. It’s why I’m glad that the few of the latest season I did catch seemed to have less of an overarching storyline (or I just didn’t know enough to recognise the hooks). I might have to start hinting to my partner that the DVDs will make good birthday presents… Possibly part of the reason I’m predisposed to liking the 13th is I’ll finally be able to catch them live again.

I read the interview and was struck by the comment about not being afraid of gender. I thought that was both pretentious and patronising. Does anyone on here really believe that those who object to this change have some sort of fear of the female gender? Since then (and go check) most of the comments attacking those who oppose this change have centred on gender. Those who oppose this casting have been labelled as misogynistic, bigoted, sexist, or just plain moronic. They have been made to feel that they must prove they are none of these things before they can make a comment. No. This concerns the changing of a character that has been formed over 50 years. A character that was hugely successful. Dr Who was (and still can be ) an excellent science fiction programme. At the moment it is nothing less than a column in the Guardian. Dr Who has been replaced by Doctor Right On. If you think I am wrong then go check over the previous pages. How much discussion is on Science Fiction/Dr Who, and how much is on gender issues.? Oh, and if anyone wants to fling the sexist, misogynist, bigoted card my way then I can direct them to some a very interesting thesis that deals with the subjugation of women and their celluloid representation and oppression on screen in a phallocentric society. I know cos I wrote it.

This casting strikes me as nothing more than vainglorious pontification masquerading as progress. “But The Doctor is an alien and can be any shape or form or gender”. The whole gender was shoehorned in on the last series to justify its presentation. The Doctor can be anything. Any gender. Any sexual persuasion. Any race. So what if he was French, or a talking ape (Andy Serkis), or a lump of putty under an armpit?

There are those who say change is necessary and we must move on to survive. Sounds a bit like those experts who said Coca Cola had to change their recipe – and we know how that worked out. I will be happy – very happy – to be proven wrong on this, but I doubt it. I expect a surge in viewing figures at the start and then for numbers to tumble. Oh, and one question. Does anyone know how many series JW has been signed for? This is NOT a gender issue, it’s a miscasting issue. It’s the BBC thinking they need to make a statement when none is needed. Frankly, it’s a mess.

I hope you enjoy the show. I will not castigate those who continue to watch and accept/pretend this is the same character. Dr Who has changed forever. Some embrace the change and some do not. I am in the latter. Strange thing is, those very people who castigate those who don’t like the change , whom they call misogynists, bigots and sexists – those people are presenting themselves as the tolerant ones.

To try and answer you Lordwindowlicker, I agree this last writer enabled the idea that a Timelord could be male or female. Missy/The Master being the main example. This does not make it right. The story lines from this writer have not been the best. This is probably why Capaldi appears the worst Dr Who? To gender bend does not improve the story lines. It makes them more confused. Bills story lines were poorer for her sexual bias being made part of the story line. She is a strong actress. It is a shame she has left the show. Perhaps this is because she would fancy the new Dr? This is not appropriate for a predominately children’s programme.

I said I would now give Jodie a chance, but I fear it will be the death knell for this programme. It is the continuity of respect for The Doctor, known to his enmities such as The Daleks which make the programme what it is. I hope we can at least keep the Tardis as a police box, or will the Cameleon circuit now be fixed?

@juniperfish To the defence of the makers of BBC nature documentaries (whom I adore), I am sure various shows have included footage of some snails having a good time, which would technically be bisexual hermaphrodites or somesuch. (What a weird start to my second post on these boards!)

@jim4 Until a century or so ago, blue was actually a feminine colour – associated among others with the Virgin Mary. Young girls would be dressed in light blue, while pink was given to boys as it is of course light red: thus strongly associated with the military, from Spartans and Roman Legionaries all the way to the Redcoats. A blue Tardis thus is an excellent colour for a Doctor currently using a more feminine appearance. 😉

Still find it difficult to believe how big a deal this apparantly is to some people. Firstly, all those who have been major fans up until this stage have, I’d assume, seen the recent two series. In these, the groundwork allowing for a ‘gender’ change has been not just created, but so explicitly that a female Doctor was bound to appear at the earliest opportunity. Secondly: what’s the big deal? Maybe I’m just lucky living and working in an environment where gender is basically irrelevant, but I genuinely cannot understand the major implications this seems to have to some (unless your name is, say, River Song, in which case I look forward to seeing your reaction on screen). I just hope the writers also won’t make a big deal out of it either – couldn’t care less about Bill being gay, but they made it into ‘a thing’ by referring to it at least every other episode. Have a laugh with the regeneration, then move on and make people accept it by presenting it as completely normal.

Good thing Game of Thrones has restarted and I’ve just started watching Broadchurch (research you see), will take my mind of the long wait ahead until the Christmas special, let alone Whittaker’s first proper series.